


Room to Let

by forthegreatergood



Series: My Best Girl [3]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, Pining, Slut Shaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-11 22:52:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3335753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forthegreatergood/pseuds/forthegreatergood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy needs a new apartment, and Angie needs a new neighbor.  What could be simpler?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Room to Let

**Author's Note:**

> All characters property of Marvel.
> 
> Not beta-read. Please post any noticed errors in the comments, and they'll get fixed.

Angie thought it was a little funny, the way Peggy’s lips always set in that firm, displeased line when _The Captain America Adventure Program_ came on. It was hokey, sure, and Arlene French laid it on thick as paste with that breathy-sexpot routine, but her tone when she asked Angie to change the station was sharp enough that there seemed to be something personal about it. The way Peggy had stared at his picture, Angie had figured her for a fan. Then again, maybe being a fan of the guy himself made the sappy nonsense with Hitler personally kidnapping the regiment’s communal love interest even harder to listen to.

“Arlene French beat me out for that part.” Angie cleared her throat and gave Peggy her best mix of sultry and defiant. “You lousy krauts are in big trouble once Captain America gets here.”

When Peggy’s eyes just dropped back to her newspaper, she prompted, “It’s better, right?”

“Thrillingly realistic,” Peggy sighed. 

Angie took comfort in her having liked French’s version even less before she noticed what Peggy was looking at. Classified ads for apartments and sublets. Oh, but that was a good sign.

“You moving?” she asked, perking up. The Griffith always had at least one or two rooms up for grabs; it was amazing how girls who made their own way in the world weren’t exactly falling all over themselves to move into a place that was run by someone who thought she was their ma. The idea of seeing Peggy over breakfast made her nerves sizzle. And the way the girls didn’t always bother with dressing gowns after-hours meant she might give Peggy an eyeful with no one the wiser about what she was up to.

“I, uh, lost my roommate,” Peggy stammered, and Angie could hear the sting still in it. She wondered if it was like the pilot girl she’d stayed with a while. Bonnie had liked guys best and only ever let Angie get past second base when she didn’t have a fella on the line, and she’d never been quite able to get her head around Angie just not finding men that interesting. It wasn’t like Angie hadn’t tried. It was what a girl did, after all. She just couldn’t find much in guys in general to recommend them as dates. There hadn’t really been any kind of future in it, and she’d given up pretty quick once she’d been out on her own. Even with all that, though, it had still been a shock when Bonnie had up and left to get married.

“My first place, I live with this girl from Queens,” Angie confessed. “It was okay for maybe six months, and then-- _bam_ \--one day she’s engaged. Next day, she’s married and living in Armonk.”

She’d never even gotten the guy’s name, and Bonnie’d run out on her just like that. If it hadn’t been for a girl she knew from the chorus line she’d been working at the time, she’d have fallen pretty hard when rent came due. She’d thought there might be some problems on account of Norma being married, but it had turned out her guy went in for other guys and hadn’t been real up-front about it before they’d gotten hitched. Norma had been a good sport about the whole thing, though, so he was happy to look the other way when she let their spare room to yet another ‘cousin from out of town.’

“You think you know people,” Peggy sympathized.

Angie smiled and started looking over the ones Peggy had circled. She pursed her lips and shook her head in mock-consternation.

“Cozy studio apartment? That means it’s a broom closet. Convenient to public transportation? You’ll be living under the Third Avenue el.” Angie made a face and started clearing the plates. She wondered what Peggy looked like with her hair done up for bed. Some girls looked twice as sweet with their hair up like that, and some girls just looked silly. One of the best parts about living with Norma, aside from the fact that she turned out to be a great kisser, was the way she’d never minded Angie fussing with her hair before they went out.

“What would you suggest?” Peggy asked, looking twice as skeptical of the ads as she had a minute ago.

Angie looked down a second to hide the triumphant gleam in her eyes as best she could. When she glanced back up, she pretended to think about it for all of a second.

“Girl down the hall from me just moved out.” She made a face. “Couldn’t hack it, I guess. She was always crying to her mother on the hall phone.”

“Oh, poor thing,” Peggy said quickly.

Angie thought of the last time Doris had interrupted her while she was daydreaming about Peggy and wrinkled her nose. She’d been frustrated for the rest of the night, and it hadn’t much improved her temper for the morning shift, either.

“Yeah, maybe the first couple times,” she allowed. “Anyway, it’s over on Sixty-Third. It’s real safe.” Miriam was always hammering away on that, and who knew? She’d known plenty of girls who could take care of themselves just fine but didn’t want to have to take care of themselves every second of the livelong day. Peggy might be like that. “Lots of great girls.”

Angie paused just long enough to give her a chipper smile. “Plus, I’d be your neighbor, so that’s not nothing.”

“It’s a lovely idea,” Peggy said, and Angie’s heart fluttered, “but I’d hate for you to grow tired of me.”

She almost laughed out loud at that. Being around Peggy was like riding a roller coaster. She was sure Peggy would get sick of her way quicker than she could ever get sick of Peggy. Peggy was smart, and sure of herself, and for all of Angie’s easy assurances about dues-paying, there were times when the thought of going to yet another audition where she probably wasn’t getting the part and might even flop in front of everybody made her not want to get out of bed. Peggy was the sort of girl nothing stopped, and when she decided on something, by god you just got out of her way. Angie couldn’t get enough of girls like that, but she’d met more than a few women who couldn’t take much of girls like her.

“You don’t strike me as the ‘crying on the hall phone’ type, English,” Angie told her wryly. 

Peggy didn’t strike her as the type of girl to cry over anything, really, unless it was pretty awful. Once a girl was talking about the war and its life-and-death decisions like it had something to recommend it, it would be pretty hard to go back to getting misty-eyed over somebody’s snide remark or wrecking a heel on a favorite pair of shoes. Angie watched her waiver for a long moment. She looked tempted, and Angie was just on the verge of declaring victory when she saw Peggy’s lips turn down. She had her serious face on when she straightened back up.

“I appreciate it, truly, but I’m actually on my way to see an apartment right now.”

Angie tried to conceal her disappointment. It wasn’t even a very good lie, but maybe she’d picked up on Angie’s angle and her roommate splitting like that had burned worse than she let on. Angie tried to paper over it with a joke just in case.

“At this hour? You sure you’re reading the right kind of want ads?” she asked.

“It comes recommended through a friend!” Peggy protested, like she thought Angie might really believe she was naive enough to fall for something like that. 

Angie smiled to herself at the idea. She was pretty sure Peggy would have seen through something as flimsy as those sleazy ads looking for ‘secretary, petite blondes only, please’ or ‘tenant, unmarried ladies only, redheads preferred’ before she was even out of grade school. She only knew one girl who’d answered one of those and gotten more than she bargained for, and she’d sat up half the night with poor Rachel bawling on her shoulder over it. Rachel had thought she was going to a proper interview, not auditioning to be some louse’s kept woman, and the puffed-up toad who’d placed the ad had had the nerve to call her a tramp when she wouldn’t let him feel her up after he told her she was hired.

“If you say so,” Angie said brightly. 

Another customer called her away, and she gave Peggy an apologetic smile and left her to gather her things. She almost missed the hot car picking Peggy up, and her heart sank when she realized the driver was the slick Englishman that liked to have those strange lunch dates with Peggy.

“Some friend,” she muttered. Maybe she’d been reading too much into Peggy’s disappointment over her roommate packing it in after all.

*****

Angie carefully cut the ad out of the paper and helpfully underlined the best features listed. She’d have something to hand over the next time she saw Peggy, and maybe her soldier girl would change her mind. Never let it be said that Angie Martinelli gave up on what she wanted after only one try, she thought.

The next time she saw Peggy turned out to be sooner than she’d figured on. Angie had looked up from wiping down a table and caught sight of those sharp shoulders of Peggy’s dark against the streetlights, and she’d almost swept a glass onto the floor by accident. She’d barely dried her hands and grabbed the ad before she was knocking on the window to get Peggy’s attention.

“I found one!” she called, raising her voice to be heard through the glass.

Peggy said something back, but the only word she could catch was ‘appointment,’ and that couldn’t be right at this time of night.

“It has its own bathroom!”

Peggy had to know what a coup that was in an affordable apartment in this section of town, but the only thing Angie got back was another muffled version of no.

Angie frowned and pressed the paper up to the glass. “Don’t make me come out there!”

That got her attention, at least, and Angie was relieved to see it. Waitresses weren’t allowed to just loiter out front, and as dark as it was, Peggy wouldn’t have been able to read the print on the page anyway. She steamrolled past Peggy’s scolding once she was through the revolving door.

“Women only. A safe community for modern female professionals. Apartment for rent. Five-hundred and fifty square feet, furnished, full bath, high floors, quiet building, security assured. Close proximity to the Lexington Avenue local. Continental breakfast upon request.” Angie took a breath. “Paradise or what?”

It really was. Miriam’s martinet routine aside, a single girl could hardly get a better deal that wasn’t rubbing shoulders with by-the-hour rentals, and then there was the gauntlet of creeps to deal with just to walk out the front door. If Peggy was looking to save a buck and not wind up bunking in somebody’s closet, she couldn’t beat it with a stick.

“That sounds perfect,” Peggy admitted, clearly waiting for the hook.

“That’s because it is,” Angie said firmly. “The only thing that could possibly make it better is if you lived next to me. Oops! You would.” She pointed to herself and flashed Peggy her best come-hither smile. “3-C if you need a cup of sugar.”

Her heart skipped a beat as she watched Peggy’s face fall. 

“I really shouldn’t, Angie.”

“Am I missing something, here? You need a place, this one is great, so...I’m thinking maybe it’s me.” She waited for Peggy to say something, to deny it, to tell her she was just being too sensitive. And okay, maybe it was a bit weird, trying to get one of her regulars at a diner to move in next door. But if Peggy was going to look out for her, why shouldn’t she try to look out for Peggy? And if there was something more there, she didn’t think she’d come on too strong for what she was after. Peggy had been a military girl; she knew what was what.

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t make a very good neighbor,” Peggy said gently. Her voice was a touch sad, too, and Angie grimaced. Peggy’s roommate must have pulled a real stunt when she’d left. Angie guessed she probably hadn’t been real great company for a while after Bonnie’d split, either.

A horn honking brought the explanation up short, and Peggy did a half-turn to look out the window.

“Oh, that’s my ride. I’ll see you later,” she said. She managed a contrite smile, and Angie thought at least there was that much of a promise there. Peggy wasn’t bolting out the door with a ‘see you around.’

Angie sighed and folded the newsprint in her hands absently. Peggy looked like she was in an awful hurry to get into the car that had pulled up, and Angie frowned when she realized it was Peggy’s odd suitor trying to beat her to the door. It wasn’t the same car he’d had before, and Angie mentally doubled the amount of money the guy must be rolling in to have two little numbers like that in his garage.

Peggy scooted in ahead of him, and the smile she gave him was affectionate and genuine. He was shaking his head when he got back in the driver’s seat and pulled away, and Angie couldn’t get a bead on him. No kiss, no trying to hold her hand, no nothing. If Angie’d been a man with a girl like Peggy on his arm, she wouldn’t have wasted a second. They’d be parading up and down the boardwalk, arm-in-arm, letting everybody know they were sweethearts. Of course, if she’d been a man with a girl like Peggy on the line and enough money to have two cars like that to ride around in, her girl wouldn’t have to scrounge for a cheap apartment in the want ads.

He had great taste in clothes, in cars, and Angie’d bet money on women, too. The lady with the wedding ring that matched his probably looked like a million bucks the second she rolled out of bed in the morning. He clearly had money. He was the sort of guy she could see maybe turning Peggy’s head, even if he was married. But what was going on if he wasn’t at least going to try kissing her when he picked her up or set her up with a place she wouldn’t have to split with another girl? And what kind of cover for an affair was ‘appointment,’ anyway? The whole thing was screwy enough that Angie could just about persuade herself that Mr. Fancy wasn’t really looking for a good time. Maybe they were related? They didn’t look it, but then she had cousins and second cousins that didn’t look a bit like her, and they were still blood-and-marriage through and through.

Angie chewed her lip and resolved to get close enough to eavesdrop the next time he came in and made a point of not sitting with her. Mrs. Martinelli hadn’t raised a dummy; if she knew what was so important that they had to talk about it but couldn’t just sit down and have a conversation about like two normal people, she could probably get a pretty good idea of who Mr. Fancy was to Peggy.

 _The Captain America Adventure Program_ started up on the radio, and Angie rolled her eyes. 

“Oh, give it a rest, Arlene,” she muttered, twisting the dial with unnecessary savagery until she found a station playing a new hit.

*****

Angie still couldn’t believe her luck. Peggy had come in the next morning looking almost contrite, and she’d asked point blank if the apartment was still open. A dash of persistence got a girl a long way, it seemed. She’d tried not to seem too pleased about Peggy changing her mind, but it was hard not to preen now that she was showing her through the place. Peggy was going to love it, she was sure. She’d even picked up a bottle of schnapps to give Peggy a proper housewarming

“Hi, Mary!” Angie chirped. She waved at the girl in glasses carefully powdering her nose.

“Hi!” Mary answered, waving back at them. 

Peggy waved as well, and Angie thought she could just die from how adorable Peggy looked when she was being shy. Angie pitched her voice just for Peggy. “That’s Mary. She’s a legal secretary at Goodman, Kurtzberg, and Holliway.” She spotted the singer she’d gotten to know over trying to get spilled coffee out of a silk blouse. “Evelyn!”

“Hey, Angie!” Evelyn said brightly as she swept past.

Angie nodded to Peggy and steered her toward the lobby. “Evelyn is a lounge singer at a club in midtown. Hi, Sarah!”

“Hi!”

“That’s Sarah,” Angie explained. “She’s a slut.” 

A full half the guys Angie had been suckered into helping sneak out of or into the hotel had been Sarah’s. Angie figured there was a healthy appetite, and then there was whatever Sarah was up to. She didn’t know how Sarah hooked them all, but she figured those gorgeous chestnut curls probably had something to do with it. Angie paused and waved her hands a little. 

“I am _so glad_ you changed your mind. You’re gonna _love_ living here!”

Peggy chuckled nervously and shook her head.

“Assuming I’m accepted,” she said, her brows knitting. “I’ve never rented a flat that required an interview.”

Angie heaved a sigh and showed her in. “It’s just a formality. You’ll ace it. Miriam’s a total pussycat.”

A small lie, but Angie didn’t feel too bad about telling it. If Peggy could handle the Blitz and the boys at the phone company, she could handle Miss Fry. Especially since Angie had spent the whole way over coaching her on what Miriam looked for in a ‘modern young lady,’ which seemed to involve a lot of professional skills and the personal life of a Victorian nun. How Miriam expected an independent girl to snag a beau worth having if she barely knew what she had under her skirt, never mind what he had down his pants, she didn’t know. Maybe once she was good and ready to move on, she’d screw up the courage to ask.

Angie had to swallow a sudden bout of nerves on Peggy’s behalf when she saw the school marm herself glowering from behind the counter. She’d die of shame if she’d spent all this time selling Peggy on the place and then dragged her down here with a stiff knee and a sore ankle only to have Miriam bite her head off and show her the door.

Angie elbowed Peggy discreetly, just a tiny nudge of support, and then sashayed on past like they didn’t know each other. She took up a post on the other side of the desk and pretended to fiddle with her mail while Miriam looked Peggy over and launched into her madam bulldog routine.

“Your references are impeccable,” Miriam said primly. She eyed the application like she thought it might spontaneously burst into flames or declare itself a forgery. “Senator Palmer is especially complimentary.”

Angie started and tried not to drop her letters. Peggy had a recommendation from a senator? Trust Miriam to act like she wasn’t impressed by that. Angie wished she’d sprung for some of the fake champagne they were selling now that rationing was over instead of the schnapps she’d bought.

“He and my father were dear friends,” Peggy said smoothly. She knew Peggy, and there was no way _that_ was the truth. A girl like Peggy didn’t wind up working the phones if her pop was buddies with a senator. Angie wondered if she could get the real story out of her sometime. She gave her an encouraging eyebrow wiggle and bit her lip. If Peggy had an in with a senator, which she clearly did if she had a letter like that, then maybe she and Mr. Fancy were just friends after all.

“Were you limping as you came in?” Miriam asked, her eyes narrowing.

“Caught my heel on a cobblestone,” Peggy explained. “You know how the West Village is.”

“I never travel below Twenty-Third Street, so no, I do not,” Miriam said frostily. 

Angie gave her a sympathetic look at the misstep, and Peggy shot her a ‘What now?’ look in return. Miriam glanced back up just in time to catch her, and Angie barely turned around quick enough to throw her off the trail.

“How long do you see yourself working for the telephone company?” Miriam asked, her tone still cold.

“Only until I’m married, Miss Fry,” Peggy said easily, and Angie grinned. Miriam _loved_ that answer, and Peggy had nailed the delivery.

Miriam drew herself up and took a deep breath, and Angie was glad she’d warned Peggy in advance of the speech that was coming.

“In a city filled with temptation, debauchery, and mischief,” Miriam announced, “the Griffith Hotel is a haven for proper young ladies. Our code of conduct is indisputable. Attire should be demure and elegant.” Peggy looked down at her dress, and Angie couldn’t tell what on earth for. She was never anything but elegant, and Angie’d never caught sight of her in anything that wasn’t more demure than she liked. “Curfew is ten o’clock. No drinking. No men above the first floor. No exceptions. Is that clear, Miss Carter?”

“Perfectly.” 

Peggy nodded and looked like she was taking it all seriously, and Angie couldn’t suppress her smile any longer. Miriam only gave girls that speech if she’d decided to take them. Angie was almost giggling into her mail when Miriam turned around the second time, and she killed the laugh with the thought of the quick tidying she’d have to give her own apartment before she could have company over. She considered the state she’d left it in, and revised her plan. She wanted to impress Peggy without seeming too desperate. A thorough tidying and then a careful and very strategic un-tidying was in order. She knew just the corselet she wanted to leave ‘drying’ in the bathroom, too.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Room to Let](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3411119) by [forthegreatergood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forthegreatergood/pseuds/forthegreatergood), [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins)




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